Sunday, December 31, 2006

The Science for a "Gay-Free" Child?:

Science told: hands off gay sheep

Experiments that claim to ‘cure’ homosexual rams spark anger

SCIENTISTS are conducting experiments to change the sexuality of “gay” sheep in a programme that critics fear could pave the way for breeding out homosexuality in humans.

The technique being developed by American researchers adjusts the hormonal balance in the brains of homosexual rams so that they are more inclined to mate with ewes.

It raises the prospect that pregnant women could one day be offered a treatment to reduce or eliminate the chance that their offspring will be homosexual. Experts say that, in theory, the “straightening” procedure on humans could be as simple as a hormone supplement for mothers-to-be, worn on the skin like an anti-smoking nicotine patch.

The research, at Oregon State University in the city of Corvallis and at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, has caused an outcry. Martina Navratilova, the lesbian tennis player who won Wimbledon nine times, and scientists and gay rights campaigners in Britain have called for the project to be abandoned.

Navratilova defended the “right” of sheep to be gay. She said: “How can it be that in the year 2006 a major university would host such homophobic and cruel experiments?” She said gay men and lesbians would be “deeply offended” by the social implications of the tests.

But the researchers argue that the work is valid, shedding light on the “broad question” of what determines sexual orientation. They insist the work is not aimed at “curing” homosexuality.

Approximately one ram in 10 prefers to mount other rams rather than mate with ewes, reducing its value to a farmer. Initially, the publicly funded project aimed to improve the productivity of herds.

The scientists have been able to pinpoint the mechanisms influencing the desires of “male-oriented” rams by studying their brains. The animals’ skulls are cut open and electronic sensors are attached to their brains.

By varying the hormone levels, mainly by injecting hormones into the brain, they have had “considerable success” in altering the rams’ sexuality, with some previously gay animals becoming attracted to ewes.

Professor Charles Roselli, the Health and Science University biologist leading the research, defended the project.

He said: “In general, sexuality has been under-studied because of political concerns. People don’t want science looking into what determines sexuality.

“It’s a touchy issue. In fact, several studies have shown that people who believe homosexuality is biologically based are less homophobic than people who think that this orientation is acquired.”

The research is being peer-reviewed by a panel of scientists in America, demonstrating that it is being taken seriously by the academic community.

Potentially, the techniques could one day be adapted for human use, with doctors perhaps being able to offer parents pre-natal tests to determine the likely sexuality of offspring or a hormonal treatment to change the orientation of a child.

Roselli has said he would be “uncomfortable” about parents choosing sexuality, but argues that it is up to policy makers to legislate on questions of ethics.

Michael Bailey, a neurology professor at Northwestern University near Chicago, said: “Allowing parents to select their children’s sexual orientation would further a parent’s freedom to raise the sort of children they want to raise.”

Critics fear the findings could be abused.

Udo Schuklenk, Professor of Bioethics at Glasgow Caledonian University, who has written to the researchers pressing them to stop, said: “I don’t believe the motives of the study are homophobic, but their work brings the terrible possibility of exploitation by homophobic societies. Imagine this technology in the hands of Iran, for example.

“It is typical of the US to ignore the global context in which this is taking place.”

Peter Tatchell, the gay rights campaigner, said: “These experiments echo Nazi research in the early 1940s which aimed at eradicating homosexuality. They stink of eugenics. There is a danger that extreme homophobic regimes may try to use these experimental results to change the orientation of gay people.”

He said that the techniques being developed in sheep could in future allow parents to “play God”.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the pressure group, condemned the study as “a needless slaughter of animals, an affront to human dignity and a colossal waste of precious research funds”.

The tests on gay sheep are the latest in a long line of experiments seeking to alter the sexuality of humans and animals.

Günther Dorner, a scientist in the former East Berlin, carried out hormone-altering tests on rodents in the 1960s in the hope of finding a way to eradicate homosexuality.

In 2002, Simon LeVay, an American neurologist, claimed to have discovered that homosexual and heterosexual men had physically different brains. His tests on the corpses of gay men who had died of Aids were widely criticised.

Friday, December 22, 2006

From the Latina Lista blog:

One of the more disturbing stories that surfaced after the Swift meat plant raids was how too many children were left without a parent and/or farmed out to friends and families with no immediate word on how they will be reconnected with their mami and papi.

But if news filtering out of one of the newly designated immigrant detention centers for families is any indication, no undocumented parent is going to open their mouth and claim their children if the whole family is going to be subjected to what is becoming known as the first known concentration camp on American soil in the 21st Century.

The T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas (on the outskirts of Austin, Texas) is a private detention facility operated by Corrections Corporation of America. It and a smaller center in Pennsylvania are the only two facilities in the country that are authorized to hold non-Mexican immigrant families and children on noncriminal charges.

It means that at the Taylor facility of the 400 people "held" there, 200 are children. And all are families that can be held there for whatever length of time without due process conducted in a timely manner.

To top it off, as long as the men, women and children are held there, the facility's operator draws a daily profit - per person.

The children range in age from infants on up.

According to the lawyers who have visited their clients in the facility, the children receive one hour of education, English instruction, a day and one half hour of indoor recreation.

Jeans and t-shirts have been replaced with jail uniforms; children are issued uniforms as soon as they can fit into them  and everyone must wear name tags, even the babies.

Lawyers are reporting that thefamiliess are receiving substandard medical care and becoming ill from the food being served them. Children are losing weight and people are complaining of migraine-type headaches.

Those clients who are asylum seekers, say the lawyers, are continually suffering trauma on top of the trauma they've already undergone in their home countries - all without receiving any kind of pyschological treatment.

Originally, the detention facilities were touted by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff as a way to keep families together while waiting for their cases to come up for court review.

Homeland Securitysecretaryy Chertoff(Source: dhs.gov)

Well, they are accomplishing that goal - to the exclusion of being allowed any outside contact with the rest of the world, aside from those who have lawyers.

The plight of these families caught in a government-sanctioned Hell is slowly spreading (Texas Civil Rights Review, Austin's American Statesman Editorial,American Statesman article) but with Christmas less than a week away these families truly need a miracle to let them know that the outside world knows that they are there  not to mention, the children who need to know that Santa or Los Tres Reyes, or the other Holiday entities observed by those who are not Mexican or Latin American, will know where to find them.

The detention for a prolonged period of any child, regardless of whether or not they are with family members, is beneath what the United States used to stand for.

As of late, the activities of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, under the direction of Homeland Security, has had too many people - on both sides of the immigration debate - shaking their heads as to what our government is capable of subjecting the children of these immigrants to.

We have felt helpless and too many times my Inbox is filled with emails of "What can I do?" or "Where do we go from here?"

Concerned citizens, led by human rights proponent Jay Johnson-Castro (center), walk in protest 35 miles from Texas state capitol in Austin to Taylor,Texas, site of the Hutto Residential facility.(Source: statesman.com)

There are few issues that demand immediate action, and when children are concerned, it most always warrants as one of those issues.

For children to be held longer than three days, receive but one hour of instruction and only a half hour of recreational play, to be made to feel like criminals by wearing jail jumpsuits and name tags and not have any contact with anyone outside of the facility is a serious violation of the public trust we have in our government, and how we value children in this country.

What can be done?

As cliche as it sounds, it's time to contact our government officials:

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

The below Burger King commercial just shows how sick, funny, and/or disturbing television advertisements can be. Imagine waking up and a guy dressed in a Burger King suit hands you breakfast, would you at least be a little disturbed?

Organized Crime has a free reign in Connecticut, these guys must have pissed somebody more important off:

An aged under boss of New York's Genovese crime family pleaded guilty in New Haven federal court Wednesday to racketeering conspiracy and tax evasion counts in connection with a mob-enforced scheme to carve out trash-hauling turf in southwestern Connecticut and Westchester County, N.Y.

Matthew "Matty the Horse" Ianniello, 86, is the most prominent figure to plead guilty of the 29 indicted this year after a 2-year federal investigation. He faces a sentence in the range of two years or more, according to federal sentencing guidelines. He also has agreed to pay restitution of nearly $278,000 in taxes and penalties when sentenced in March. Ianniello did not report the fees, or "mob tax," paid to him by trash haulers to protect their turf as income on his 2001 and 2002 tax returns. He failed to file returns in 2003 and 2004.

In addition, Ianniello agreed to forfeit more than $130,000 in cash seized by FBI and IRS agents during a search of his home in July.

The leading Connecticut figure in the alleged scheme is James Galante, the Danbury-based trash magnate who owns nearly two dozen trash hauling companies. He used his profits in part to pad salaries of players on his minor league hockey team, the Danbury Trashers, in violation of league rules.

Galante is named in 72 counts of the 117-page indictment, facing charges that include racketeering, witness tampering, mail and wire fraud and interfering with interstate commerce.

His attorney, Hugh Keefe, said Ianniello's guilty pleas have no bearing on Galante's case.

"I don't think it means anything," Keefe said. "As long as there is no cooperation agreement, everyone has to do what's in his personal best interest. I'm sure Mr. Ianniello felt that, because of his age and with the New York case pending, pleading was in his best interest. I don't think it has any practical effect on Jimmy's case.

"Unless he's going to testify, [Ianniello's plea] will not be relevant to Jimmy's prosecution," Keefe said.

Ianniello's plea agreement contains no provision that he cooperate in the prosecutions of any co-defendants. He pleaded guilty three months ago to a racketeering count in New York and is awaiting sentence there. The ailing mob boss remains free on $1 million bail. His Connecticut sentencing is scheduled for March 9.

Galante, 53, is alleged to have paid Ianniello in excess of $800,000 in "mob tax" in 2001-2005. The payments ended when the FBI raided 60 businesses in Connecticut and New York in 2005.

Federal marshals took over operation of Galante's trash hauling companies after his arrest in June. Control of the companies and the freezing of other Galante assets has been the subject of extensive proceedings since his arrest.

Also indicted was former Waterbury mayor Joseph Santopietro, who was released from federal prison in 1999, after serving six years for taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from developers. He allegedly served as Galante's representative in the Waterbury area.

To date, eight of the 29 defendants named in the indictment have pleaded guilty. Two additional people not named in the indictment have pleaded guilty in connection with the scheme.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

More On the Police Misconduct State, Corrupticut

A Hartford police detective arrested days after his retirement in 2004 on charges of falsifying an arrest warrant has been granted a special form of probation that could lead to his arrest record being expunged.

If Sanzo, 45, avoids arrest or prosecution within the next two years, his arrest on a single charge of tampering with evidence will be erased and his record wiped clean.

The decision came after a hearing in which Sanzo's lawyer, Jake Donovan of Middletown, called another retired officer who said that police frequently sign their names to warrants - and swear before judges - that they've seen things they haven't.

That officer, retired detective Stanley Wasilewski, said that while police weren't "creating" information, they would, in the interest of expedience, rely on their partner's assertion that they'd witnessed something, and say in the warrant application that they, too, had witnessed an event.

"There's times when this is written and that's not quite the way it happened," Wasilewski told Miano in an Oct. 25 hearing.

Miano said Wednesday that he is troubled by such a claim because "it leads me to think perhaps this is more widespread, and that is a concern."

The Fourth Amendment - a guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure, and the requirement of the establishment of probable cause in seeking warrants for search and seizures - is "the wall" between citizens and an unreasonable government, Miano said.

"Judges have to be confident that what's being represented to them in ... an arrest warrant application or a search warrant are as accurate as can be," he said.

Warrant applications that say police have witnessed something, as opposed to confidential informants witnessing something, are given more weight, Miano said.Confidential informants are presumably "in the criminal milieu," he said, and "there is no presumption of credibility."

The warrant at the center of Sanzo's arrest claimed that he and Officer Nathaniel Ortiz had witnessed people buying drugs from a convicted felon in Hartford's north end on Aug. 27 and 28, 2004.

However, police and prosecutor Dennis J. O'Connor say the warrant was based on false information, and that the convicted felon was actually in jail at the time Sanzo and Ortiz claimed to have seen him.

The warrant was used in a search of the felon's mother's apartment. Ortiz and another officer, William Ward, say they bought crack cocaine from the woman. She later complained to the Police Department that items were stolen and property destroyed during the search.

The internal affairs investigation turned up other inconsistencies, police say: In their report after the "drug buy," Ortiz and Ward made no mention of Sanzo being present to witness drug buys, as he'd said in the warrant.

And Ward, in an interview with internal affairs, said that an informant bought crack cocaine - not marijuana as was submitted as evidence and written about in the search warrant application by Ortiz and Sanzo.

Ward said he "had never seen" the marijuana and police believe it was added to the evidence bag after Ward completed the paperwork documenting the informant's drug buy.

Ortiz is charged with two counts of tampering with evidence; his case is pending in Superior Court.

Miano said that he hadn't intended to grant the special probation program to Sanzo, but later changed his mind."I am satisfied that Officer Sanzo did not intend to mislead the court," by signing the warrant, Miano said.

Instead, he said, he believed that Sanzo signed off on Ortiz's claims "to facilitate matters" more quickly and get the warrant signed.

"Well, it shouldn't be done that way," Miano said. "We can't be lackadaisical about it."

O'Connor said Wasilewski's testimony raised a number of troubling questions and the specter that there is a "systemic problem" within the Police Department.

Click Here for a story about the former CT Gov. Rowland's $500,000 home purchase and the donating of his speaking fees to charity just after having been released from prison, and the corruption goes on...

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Bid Rigging 101

There is so much corruption in Connecticut. For the very few that are actually investigated, the sentences are often "too light" in my opinion.

A citizen that steals a candy bar from a corner store may suffer more in court than an official or official's friend that steals thousands or even millions of taxpayers' money.

CONNECTICUT NEWS

Ex-DOT Worker Gets 3 Years Of Probation

Guilty Of Theft, He Is Fined, Ordered To Do Community Service December 14, 2006Hartford Courant Staff Report

NEW HAVEN -- A former state Department of Transportation employee was sentenced in federal court Wednesday to three years of probation in connection with an investigation of corruption in a government-funded renovation project at Union Station in New Haven.

Saverio Sereno, 59, of Coventry, was also fined $2,000 by U.S. District Judge Mark R. Kravitz and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service.

U.S. Attorney Kevin J. O'Connor said in a release that Sereno waived indictment on July 5 and pleaded guilty to one count of theft concerning programs that receive federal funds.

As a DOT employee in 2003, Sereno helped to coordinate the renovation of department offices on the fourth floor of Union Station, O'Connor said. The renovations were performed by Merritt Builders.

Sereno admitted helping Raymond Cox, his supervisor, arrange for Merritt Builders to provide money and items of value to people for their personal use, with an understanding those expenses would be billed to the DOT as part of the station project, O'Connor said.

Sereno participated in providing cash from Merritt Builders to Frederick Kelly, who had prepared fake bids on the renovation project at the behest of Cox, so it would appear that the renovation project had been subject to competitive bidding, O'Connor said.

Sereno also helped Cox arrange for Merritt to provide a DOT employee with a television, personally obtained a trash compactor from Merritt Builders and received $2,000 from Cox, O'Connor said.

After the contract was awarded to Merritt Builders, Cox asked Kelly to prepare two fake bids proposing amounts in excess of the bid submitted by Merritt Builders, O'Connor said. Later, Cox and Sereno asked Kelly, and Kelly agreed, to revise the fake bids so they would exceed the amount that would be charged by Merritt Builders in light of subsequent changes to the project, O'Connor said. Kelly received a total of $3,000 for preparing the fake bids, O'Connor said.

During the investigation, Kelly was twice interviewed by federal law enforcement agents, in February and August 2005. While Kelly acknowledged that he had prepared the fake bids, he falsely stated on both occasions that he had not received anything of value in return, and that he had done so simply as a favor, O'Connor said.

Kravitz also ordered Sereno to pay $6,403 in restitution to the state.

On June 19, Cox pleaded guilty to one count of theft concerning programs receiving federal funds and one count of obstructing justice. He was sentenced on Oct. 19, to two months in prison and seven months of home confinement. He was also ordered to pay a fine of $3,000.

Kelly pleaded guilty on July 5 to one count of making false statements to federal law enforcement investigators. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 1.

The investigation was conducted by the U.S. Dept. of Transportation, the Office of the Inspector General, the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation Division and the Connecticut Department of Transportation. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney William J. Nardini.

* * * *Connecticut corruption cost me my home, business, retirement and the sum total of my life just for speaking out about it in newspapers and proposing legislation to elected officials to help fix the police and the courts to make them work in the public's best interest. Taxpayers should be the boss, officials have a whole other idea.

The number of cases of ehrlichiosis and babesiosis, both spread by the same black-legged tick that carries Lyme disease, rose steeply in Dutchess County last year.

The tiny blood-sucking arachnid already causes 1,300 documented cases of Lyme disease every year in Dutchess, on average in the past decade. Lyme disease causes a flu-like illness that can lead to severe neurological, arthritic and cardiac problems if not treated promptly and effectively with antibiotics.

And a new type of tick, the lone star tick, is making inroads in the county, promising yet another way to get ill from enjoying the outdoors in the Hudson Valley.

But there is hope, speakers said at a press conference in Poughkeepsie Wednesday that signaled an early kick-off to Lyme Disease Awareness Month in May.

A federal bill supporting research has increased support among local representatives, and scientists are already making progress toward developing a vaccine that would prevent black-legged ticks from biting.

"There is a lot of research going on to solve this problem," said Stephen Wikel, a University of Connecticut scientist who was invited to speak by the Hudson Valley Lyme Disease Association.

Tick-spit project

Wikel is working to sequence the genome of the black-legged tick. The aim is to understand how tick spit thwarts the human immune response, so that a vaccine can be developed to thwart tick spit. The Army is contributing $4.8 million toward the research because the government thinks ticks could be used in a bioterrorist plot to spread infectious diseases.

In Dutchess County, documented cases of the malaria-like babesiosis were up to 31 in 2005, from eight the past two years, according to preliminary Department of Health data. Documented cases of ehrlichiosis, which is now being called anaplasmosis, were also up significantly — to 194 cases from an average of 65 the previous three years.

"We're frustrated. We've done all we can, and we need that research to push us forward," Caldwell said. "Ultimately, we're going to need a vaccine that can protect us from the bite of a tick."

A federal bill, the Lyme and Tick-Borne Disease Prevention, Education and Research Act, would spend $100 million over five years on research and education. It has support from local Democrats and Republicans, but it is unclear how much support it has across the country.

"I'm hopeful we will be able to speed up the process of finding ways that Lyme disease can be detected, treated and prevented," said Lori Patricola, the Hudson Valley representative of U.S. Rep. John Sweeney, R-Clifton Park.

Agranoff has flatly refused to ever have shown me my legal file and will not give me a copy. He charged me in excess of $17,000 to defend me against the charges of breach of peace and assault 3rd after I was attacked on my properties that I had fixed up from a boarded up condition, 3 and 5 Church St. Stafford Springs. I had contacted Connecticut State Senator Tony Guglielmo after each time Brian Caldwell either attacked me or tried to attack me, 7 times or more. Police also allegedly offered Peter Coukos, a crack cocaine user and alcoholic help in getting a gun permit in exchange to harass me and my daughter out of Connecticut. Coukos allegedly continually slammed an African American woman's car repeatedly while drunk, in rolling road rage incidents in Massachusetts that happened over miles of public roads.

Please require Attorney Agranoff to send me my legal file as required by law. Please have Agranoff punished for not filing a reason to automatically appeal my case or for not appealing my case. I believe Agranoff has questionable billing and filing practices.

I believe Agranoff only did interviews to pad his bill for hours, not do any work in actually defending me. Agranoff refused to follow my instructions, call needed witnesses, and tried to dismiss our only witness to my being stalked and attacked to be called, then to badger her and try to discredit her on the stand. He allowed a worker for the police to become jury foreman against my wishes. That alone shows Agranoff acted as an additional prosecutor, not a defense attorney.

A videotape of how to find me guilty, but nothing about innocence or reasonable doubt was played to the jury. The resulting false conviction against me should be thrown out on that.

Agranoff refused to go to the diagram at the trial to show that the only witness against me, a tenant I was evicting claimed she saw me being attacked from her apartment. She would have had to see through a house so therefore was lying. Judge Jonathan Kaplan allegedly told Agranoff that he could not defend me or challenge police testimony. Kaplan refused to let me speak in my behalf, so I had no defense.

I would also like Attorney Agranoff investigated for botching the sale paperwork for my selling of 18 School St., Somersville, Connecticut. He did not take the sewer bills out of my name and forgot about a the $5000 deposit check owed me. Please look into Agranoff for evidence of gross incompetence and into revoking Michael H. Agranoff's law license. Please forward my accusations to the proper authorities as I would like Agranoff arrested and prosecuted.

I believe Agranoff aided the prosecution to either pay back a favor for being able to get away with having an improper relationship with a young female client. I believe that former Police Commissioner Arthur L. Spada, Judge Jonathan Kaplan, Attorney Michael H. Agranoff, and Connecticut State Troopers Amaral and Langlois acted illegally in collusion to rig my trial to prevent me from suing the police for violating my civil rights, to prevent me from speaking out about police, prosecutorial, and judicial misconduct in newspapers, and/or to prevent me from proposing legislation to elected officials such as Civilian Oversight of Police and eliminating Judicial Immunity for prosecutors and judges.

My attacker, Brian Caldwell, admitted demanding money while threatening to kill me on the stand, under oath. Why was a felon given immunity to maliciously prosecute me for "overreacting to being beaten during a robbery attempt in my dark driveway?

Please review my trial transcripts for fraud of the court. Please help expunge my record. There has been recent newspaper stories regarding rampant, across the board police and judicial misconduct. Please obtain a copy of my legal file held by Agranoff's office if one even ever existed.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Judge weighs torture claim vs. Rumsfeld

By MATT APUZZOAssociated Press Writer

AP Photo/HARAZ N. GHANBARI

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal judge on Friday appeared reluctant to give Donald H. Rumsfeld immunity from torture allegations, yet said it would be unprecedented to let the departing defense secretary face a civil trial.

"What you're asking for has never been done before," U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan told lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union.

The group is suing on behalf of nine former prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. The lawsuit contends the men were beaten, suspended upside down from the ceiling by chains, urinated on, shocked, sexually humiliated, burned, locked inside boxes and subjected to mock executions.

If the suit were to go forward, it could force Rumsfeld and the Pentagon to disclose what officials knew about abuses at prisons such as Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and what was done to stop it.

Rumsfeld, who leaves the Defense Department on Dec. 18, told Pentagon employees and reporters Friday that the day he learned about abuses at Abu Ghraib was his worst day in office.

"I remember being stunned by the news of the abuse at Abu Ghraib," Rumsfeld said. "And then watching so many determined people spend so many months trying to figure out exactly how in the world something like that could have happened, and how to make it right."

Lawyers for the ACLU and Human Rights First, however, argue that Rumsfeld and top military officials disregarded warnings about the abuse and authorized the use of illegal interrogation tactics that violated the constitutional rights of prisoners.

Foreigners outside the United States are not normally afforded the same protections as U.S. citizens, and Hogan said he was wary about extending the Constitution across the globe.

Doing so, he said, might subject government officials to all sorts of political suits. Osama bin Laden could sue, Hogan said, claiming two American presidents threatened to have him murdered.

"How do you control that?" Hogan asked. "Where does it stop? Does it stop at the secretary of defense? Does it stop at the president? How does this work?"

The Justice Department argues that is exactly why government officials generally are immune from suits related to their jobs. By allowing the case to proceed, Hogan would make all future military operations subject to second-guessing by the courts, the government contends.

Hogan questioned the scope of that immunity. He said freedom from torture is a basic right accepted by the United States and all civilized nations.

"Would you take the same policy if the argument was one of genocide?" Hogan asked. "Are you saying there could be no inquiry done?"

Beckner said abuse claims should be handled by the military, which has prosecuted more than 100 such cases. In his farewell speech Friday, Rumsfeld said such prosecutions demonstrated "how our democracy deals openly and decisively with such egregious wrongdoing."

Lawyers for the civil rights groups, which have criticized the military's prosecution record, said the government is trying to operate a "rights-free" zone overseas.

"The defendants had a duty to deter and punish acts of torture and they did 180 degrees opposite of that: They encouraged and directed that torture," lawyer Paul Hoffman said.

Hogan said torture is a crime against mankind, but he did not see how the Constitution applied to foreigners held in overseas military prisons.

Hogan said he would rule quickly on whether to dismiss the case; he did not make a decision Friday.

Karpinski, whose Army Reserve unit was in charge of the Abu Ghraib prison, was demoted last year and is the highest-ranking officer punished in the scandal. Sanchez, who commanded U.S. forces in Iraq, retired from the Army last month, calling his career a casualty of the prison scandal.

Pappas, the former top-ranking intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib, was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for testimony about the abuse.

Yet, another international incident to make friends all over the world

US bugged Diana's phone on night of death crash

The American secret service was bugging Princess Diana's telephone conversations without the approval of the British security services on the night she died, according to the most comprehensive report on her death, to be published this week.

Among extraordinary details due to emerge in the report by former Metropolitan police commissioner Lord Stevens is the revelation that the US security service was bugging her calls in the hours before she was killed in a car crash in Paris.

In a move that raises fresh questions over transatlantic agreements on intelligence-sharing, the surveillance arm of the US has admitted listening to her conversations as she stayed at the Ritz hotel, but failed to notify MI6. Stevens is understood to have been assured that the 39 classified documents detailing Diana's final conversations did not reveal anything sinister or contain material that might help explain her death.

Scotland Yard's inquiry, published this Thursday, also throws up further intelligence links with the Princess of Wales on the night she died. The driver of the Mercedes, Henri Paul, was in the pay of the French equivalent of M15. Stevens traced £100,000 he had amassed in 14 French bank accounts though no payments have been linked to Diana's death.

Stevens's conclusion is that Diana, her companion Dodi Fayed, and Paul himself died in an accident caused by Paul driving too fast through the Pont de l'Alma underpass in Paris while under the influence of drink. The car was being pursued by photographers at the time.

Tests have confirmed that Paul was more than three times over the French drink-drive limit and was travelling at 'excessive' speed. The inquiry will quash a number of conspiracy theories that have circulated since 31 August 1997, among them that Diana was pregnant. It also found no evidence that the princess was planning to get engaged to Dodi, son of Mohamed Fayed.

The Harrods tycoon believes that Paul's blood samples were swapped to portray him as a drunk in an elaborate cover-up by the establishment to stop Diana marrying Dodi, a Muslim.

Stevens is expected to concede that while there was a mix-up it was an accident and that the original French post-mortem which found that Paul was three-times over the French drink-drive limit was correct.

He is also expected to discount the role of the white Fiat Uno which struck Diana's car shortly before the crash, even though British police officers have failed to track down the vehicle which left paintwork on the black Mercedes.

The inquiry will support the findings of the original French accident inquiry in criticising the paparazzi as a possible reason for encouraging Paul to speed. The 'bright light' theory - the claim that the driver was deliberately blinded by a beam immediately before the crash - is also dismissed by Stevens.

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Beware of Pig Farmers?

Undated file photo taken from television shows Robert Pickton, who is accused of killing 26 women in British Columbia.

Pig farmer faces trial in murders of 26 women

POSTED: 3:28 p.m. EST, December 8, 2006

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) -- The women began disappearing from Vancouver's seediest streets in the 1980s, hookers and dope addicts abandoned on the margins of society. Desperate friends and families were outraged when the police appeared to do little to find them.

Now, the man accused of murdering at least 26 of those missing women is finally going to trial. Jury selection was to begin Saturday for the case against Robert "Willie" Pickton, a pig farmer who, if convicted of all the murders, would become the worst serial killer in Canadian history.

Some 600 potential jurors were being called in Saturday. Justice James Williams has ruled that the trial will be divided into two parts, with the first six counts being tried first.

The gruesome allegations against Pickton fall under a publication ban which prevents the media from revealing details of the alleged crimes until opening arguments on January 8.

Journalists covering the preliminary hearings have been so haunted by the courtroom revelations that some have sought psychological help to deal with their anxiety and nightmares.

Pickton, 56, was arrested in February 2002 by police investigating the disappearances of sex-trade workers from Vancouver's grubby Downtown Eastside district. Health officials later issued a tainted-meat advisory to neighbors who may have bought pork from his farm, concerned the meat may have contained human remains.

Pickton and his brother, Dave, used to throw parties at the hog farm in a barn they had dubbed the "Piggy Palace," telling neighbors they were raising money for charity. Investigators, however, have said the parties were drunken raves with prostitutes and plenty of drugs and booze.

After Pickton was arrested and the first traces of DNA of some of the missing women were allegedly found on the farm, the buildings were razed and the province spent an estimated $61 million to excavate and sift through acres of soil looking for bones and other evidence.

Friends and family of the missing women say those who survived tell horror stories about what took place at the 17-acre pig farm outside Vancouver in Port Coquitlam.

"We deal with stories out here that would blow your mind; this story is just the apex," said the Rev. Ruth Wright of the First United Church in the heart of the Downtown Eastside, the most impoverished neighborhood in all of Canada, where the average life span does not even reach 40.

She knew seven of the victims in her decade of work in the neighborhood, where heroin addicts and sex workers line up in front of her mission for a hot meal, a foot bath or free toiletries, to sleep on the church pews, or seek legal advice and help finding a job.

Wright remembers with sadness Sereena Abotsway, a sweet-faced prostitute who was 29 when she disappeared in August 2001, shortly after marching at the front of a parade demanding the city help find the missing women. The first count of murder against Pickton is in Abotsway's name, and investigators have said that her DNA was found on the farm.

"She was very childlike, very gentle," Wright says of Abotsway. "The last conversation I had with her, she was holding a teddy bear. She loved stuffed animals."

Wright, relatives of the missing women and others who work or live on the streets of the Downtown Eastside say the city and police ignored their plight until the media began investigations of their own and relatives began holding demonstrations demanding answers.

Constable Catherine Galliford of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Joint Task Force told a news conference in March 2002, just after Pickton was arrested and public criticism had peaked, that police resources were limited and the magnitude of the case overwhelming.

"The very sad truth is that horrible things are happening everyday to women who work the streets," she said. "This investigation into missing women is forcing light onto a part of our society that traditionally resides in the very dark shadows."

The task force says it has located at least 102 women believed to be missing. Another 67 women remain on the list, as well as three unidentified DNA profiles from the Pickton farm.

If Pickton is found guilty, he would be the worst serial killer in Canadian history, claiming more victims that Clifford Olson, who pleaded guilty to killing 11 children in British Columbia in 1982.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

From the Jazz from Hell blog:

05 September 2006

Why is President Bush's brother hanging out with an alleged Russian mobster?

If you look at this innocuous little tidbit from the Guardian UK, you'll see that Neil Bush, brother of President George W. Bush, is palling around in public with exiled Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky at a sporting event in England. Nothing of note is mentioned in the item, just some scuttlebutt about UK soccer transactions.

You all remember Neil Bush, right? Billy Carter pales in comparison to this guy. Neil Bush made his bones with the spectacular $1 billion failure of Silverado Savings & Loan and has been involved in several sordid adventures since. But he’s been out of the public eye for a long time, surely to keep from embarrassing his brother.

And who is Boris Berezovsky, you ask? Well, take a look at his Wikipedia entry. You’ll see that Berezovsky, or Platon Elenin as he prefers to be called, has ties to Chechen terrorists and was the subject of a book that claimed he was “a mafia boss who had his rivals murdered.” So what the heck is he doing hobnobbing with the brother of the president of the United States?

Maybe Helen Thomas can ask Tony Snow about it, next time she’s allowed back into the Washington press corps.

UPDATE 14 SEP 2006: A reader pointed out a murder in Russia today that could be tied to Berezovsky or his rivals.

8 Comments:

An editor for Forbes - Moscow, Paul Klebnikov, was gunned down in summer of 2004, possibly for a series he did on wealthy, corrupt Russians, like Berezovsky.

Found an article by a group called the Committee to Protect Journalists, at http://www.cpj.org/news/2004/Russia19aug04na.html .

"Klebnikov had investigated other powerful people as well. In 1996 he profiled Boris Berezovsky, the media and oil tycoon who had close ties to the Kremlin during President Boris Yeltsin's tenure. The Forbes profile suggested Berezovsky might have been involved in the 1995 murder of television journalist Vladislav Listyev, an allegation that prompted Berezovsky to sue Klebnikov and Forbes in the United Kingdom for libel. The suit was withdrawn after Forbes said it had no proof of Berezovsky's involvement.

Klebnikov expanded his profile of Berezovsky into a book titled "Godfather of the Kremlin: The Decline of Russia in the Age of Gangster Capitalism," which he published in 2001.

Klebnikov's second book was published in Russian. "Conversation with a Barbarian: Interviews with a Chechen Field Commander on Banditry and Islam" was based on interviews with Chechen separatist leader Khozh Akhmed Nukhayev and focused on organized crime in Chechnya. And Klebnikov had begun gathering material for a new book about the Listyev slaying, his publisher, Valery Streletsky, told the U.S.-based Baltimore Sun."

Wonder what Neil Bush might know about that?! They're all fucked in the head.

Speaking of Neil and things that are shady, I always did find it one hell of a coincidence that John Hinkley's brother, Scott, had plans to eat dinner at Neil's (Denver) house the same day that Reagon got shot.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A top Russian central banker who led an aggressive drive to clean up Russia's murky banking system died early on Thursday after being ambushed by gunmen in what law enforcement officials said was a contract 'hit'.

You might remember an earlier post here about exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who was seen in public a couple of months ago with President Bush's brother, Neil. Well... the curious just got curiousererer. ...posted by Guzmán @ 8:52 PM

You all remember Neil Bush, right? Billy Carter pales in comparison to this guy. Neil Bush made his bones with the spectacular $1 billion failure of Silverado Savings & Loan and has been involved in several sordid adventures since. ...posted by Marvin @ 2:30 PM

Pakistan calls bullshit on Bush’s Speech . Could it be that the so-called Global War On Terror is in actuality little more than a scheme to bilk the taxpayer and loot the resources of those we claim to liberate? ...posted by Mike @ 11:20 AM

(Note: I do not endorse ALL of the conclusions and opinions expressed in the articles posted here each day. These articles are posted because I believe each source presents valuable information and a unique perspective. ...posted by BuckDevlin @ 5:13 AM

Conflict of Interest

Renowned cancer scientist was paid by chemical firm for 20 years

A world-famous British scientist failed to disclose that he held a paid consultancy with a chemical company for more than 20 years while investigating cancer risks in the industry, the Guardian can reveal.

Sir Richard Doll, the celebrated epidemiologist who established that smoking causes lung cancer, was receiving a consultancy fee of $1,500 a day in the mid-1980s from Monsanto, then a major chemical company and now better known for its GM crops business.

While he was being paid by Monsanto, Sir Richard wrote to a royal Australian commission investigating the potential cancer-causing properties of Agent Orange, made by Monsanto and used by the US in the Vietnam war. Sir Richard said there was no evidence that the chemical caused cancer.

Documents seen by the Guardian reveal that Sir Richard was also paid a £15,000 fee by the Chemical Manufacturers Association and two other major companies, Dow Chemicals and ICI, for a review that largely cleared vinyl chloride, used in plastics, of any link with cancers apart from liver cancer - a conclusion with which the World Health Organisation disagrees. Sir Richard's review was used by the manufacturers' trade association to defend the chemical for more than a decade.

The revelations will dismay scientists and other admirers of Sir Richard's pioneering work and fuel a rift between the majority who support his view that the evidence shows cancer is a product of modern lifestyles and those environmentalists who argue that chemicals and pollution must be to blame for soaring cancer rates.

Yesterday Sir Richard Peto, the Oxford-based epidemiologist who worked closely with him, said the allegations came from those who wanted to damage Sir Richard's reputation for their own reasons. Sir Richard had always been open about his links with industry and gave all his fees to Green College, Oxford, the postgraduate institution he founded, he said.

Professor John Toy, medical director of Cancer Research UK, which funded much of Sir Richard's work, said times had changed and the accusations must be put into context. "Richard Doll's lifelong service to public health has saved millions of lives. His pioneering work demonstrated the link between smoking and lung cancer and paved the way towards current efforts to reduce tobacco's death toll," he said. "In the days he was publishing it was not automatic for potential conflicts of interest to be declared in scientific papers."

But a Swedish professor who believes that some of Sir Richard's work has led to the underestimation of the role of chemicals in causing cancers said that transparency was all-important. "It's OK for any scientist to be a consultant to anybody, but then this should be reported in the papers that you publish," said Lennart Hardell of University Hospital, Orebro.

Sir Richard died last year. Among his papers in the Wellcome Foundation library archive is a contract he signed with Monsanto. Dated April 29 1986, it extends for a year the consulting agreement that began on May 10 1979 and offers improved terms. "During the one-year period of this extension your consulting fee shall be $1,500 per day," it says.

Monsanto said yesterday it did not know how much work Sir Richard did for the company, but said he was an expert witness for Solutia, a chemical business spun off from Monsanto, as recently as 2000.

Friday, December 08, 2006

One of the best YouTube Videos I have seen:

2 bleepholes in a pick up give a guy out in a convertible with his significant other a hard time over miles of road. They hit a dead end and the outcome is not as expected. It will make the casual guy or gal just want to carry a gun. With today's police being more about misconduct, bopping hookers, and beating citizens, you can't count on them. Connecticut State Police are being exposed as maybe the most corrupt and worst cops, possibly, in the nation. This happens possibly some where near Texas:

Shoddy Police, Shoddy Courts

Often the same last names of families are doing the same crimes year after year. Law Enforcement in Connecticut does little to prevent crime in downtown areas. Cops in Connecticut get job security by never really solving problems, especially social problems. There is a pretend Drug War. It is about collecting revenue, taxing the Drug Delivery System as a business in confiscated cash, assets, and property of middlemen. Solve the problem get your manpower reduced, budget slashed, and give up all political power.

Connecticut is a Police State. Click Here for my core argument against Connecticut State Police and the Connecticut Courts. Click Here for a post on Connecticut Racist Courts. Click Here for a post on typical Connecticut Court jury rigging.

I have dealt with Lt. Fox of Connecticut State Police, Troop C, Tolland Connecticut in complaining about Connecticut State Troopers Amaral and Langlois regarding their perjury in my criminal case where I was sent to prison for using pepper spray after I was beaten during a robbery attempt on my own property saying I never tried to make a complaint against my attacker, Brian Caldwell. Sergeant Sticca also of Troop C, said I “confessed” while being held at lock up at Troop C.

I asked Major Wheeler of the Connecticut State Police to review the lock up audio and arrest Sticca for making a false statement to police. I never heard anything more about having “confessed”. Then Sgt. Fox was abusive and threatening with me when I tried to make a police complaint against officers. I had to wait at Troop C and be lead through hallways to the center of the station where officers all stared me down from around the room peering in windows to the room giving me dirty looks. Fox yelled at me and was far from impartial. The whole scenario was meant to terrorize me, not do an honest investigation into police misconduct of Connecticut State Police.

I also complained to Lt. Davoren, now Captain Davoran (I am not sure of spelling), and he told me his only job was to, “Protect the Integrity of the System” after I asked him why the victim of a crime was facing prison, not the Felon, a violent alcoholic, drug using, alleged Police Informant, that was the perpetrator of crimes.

Here is a typical story about the Stafford Springs area of Connecticut:

A Stafford man charged with leading state police on a high-speed chase that injured three troopers Saturday had his bond set at $800,000 by Judge Patricia L. Harleston in Vernon Superior Court on Monday.

The man, Daniel Perez Jr., 27, of 104 Furnace Ave., Apt. 31, is being held at the Hartford Correctional Center, according to the Correction Department's Web site.

The chase began when a state trooper saw Perez operating a stolen pickup truck in Stafford, state police said. The truck also had been connected to several criminal incidents in the area, state police said.

Perez wouldn't stop for the trooper, and a chase began.

Troopers from the Troop C barracks in Tolland followed Perez, who had one passenger, onto Interstate 84 westbound in Willington, state police said. During the chase, Perez used the truck to intentionally hit a state police cruiser, state police said.

Troopers were able to box in the vehicle near exit 67, but Perez took off as a trooper reached into the vehicle to grab him, state police said. The trooper was initially hanging out of the vehicle, but freed himself as the vehicle took off, state police said.

State police said another trooper "discharged his firearm into the tire of the pickup" in an attempt to stop it.

Troopers were able to apprehend Perez when he lost control of his vehicle as he traveled on exit 67 onto Route 31, state police said.

Perez was arrested on multiple counts of assault on a police officer, as well as charges of engaging in a pursuit, reckless operation, first-degree reckless endangerment, first-degree criminal mischief, second-degree larceny, interfering with police, and escape, according to state police and court records.

He also was charged with several motor vehicle violations, court records say.

He is scheduled to appear in court again Dec. 3.

The three troopers who were injured during the chase have all been treated and released from the hospital, state police said.

The passenger in the vehicle, Christina Whitney, 25, told the Journal Inquirer on Monday that the behavior of Perez, who is her fiance, has been affected by his drug addiction.

"He's just a loving, caring person, and I know it's the drugs that's doing this to him," she said. "I know he's a better person than this."

She declined to comment further on the incident.

Lt. Alaric J. Fox, commander of the state police barracks in Tolland, said today that Whitney has not been charged in connection with the chase, but the incident is still under investigation.

At Monday's arraignment, Bail Commissioner Mollie Wittstein said Perez has a lengthy criminal history, which includes charges of third-degree larceny, failure to appear, and criminal impersonation.

Wittstein said that in 2004 Perez was charged with reckless driving and engaging in a police pursuit.

The office of the state's top prosecutor is reviewing more than 19 inadequately investigated internal affairs cases involving state police for possible criminal charges - including drunken driving, assault, drug use, and bribery - as the governor called for an independent commission to oversee change at the Public Safety Department after a scathing report released Monday.

The 207-page report is the upshot of a 13-month joint investigation conducted by the state attorney general's office and the New York State Police, who were called in by public safety Commissioner Leonard C. Boyle after the state police union raised complaints of unfair treatment in internal investigations.

The inquiry reviewed 64 cases, highlighting 19 in the report as "clear-cut illustrations of the systemic problems identified" in the evaluation.

"There are an array of serious and potentially criminal activities" detailed in the report, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said.

Among the most egregious cases highlighted are:

* A state trooper who "racked" his shotgun - activating the ammunition with a loud, distinct noise - while in a crowded Bradley International Airport terminal in order to intimidate an airline manager. The trooper was verbally reprimanded but no internal affairs probe was initiated.

* A state trooper who had seven alcohol-related incidents, of which three included threats of suicide and four involved possible drunken driving. In at least two of the incidents, the trooper was found passed out and slumped over the wheel of his state-issued car with the engine running. The first time he was found in the parking lot of a strip club, and in the second incident he was found on an Interstate 84 ramp on the New York border. In each incident the trooper was either taken home to his family or to a hospital for commitment, but no arrest was made or internal investigation conducted. He is now on desk duty.

* Incomplete or inadequate investigations into allegations that a state trooper was illegally using and distributing narcotics out of a casino and cavorting with prostitutes there. After a change in leadership, the unit was directed to drop the case.

* State troopers who allegedly bribed the civilian overtime coordinator with cash and gifts of jewelry in order to receive more plum assignments. In the investigation it was found that one state trooper overcharged the state $8,000 by falsifying documents. The trooper, who has since retired, only recently returned the money, but the civilian employees have yet to be investigated.

* An "open competition" among troopers at one barracks to see who could net the most drunken-driving arrests. Out of 500 arrests, only 14 of the mandatory videotapes survived the evidentiary process.

* The sexual assault of an airport maintenance worker by a trooper who is accused of molesting and rubbing up against the worker in an inappropriate way.

The accused troopers aren't named in the report, as the investigations into the incidents will be reopened.

A recurring and disturbing theme throughout each of the cases is the clear attempt by investigating officers to discredit a complainant "in any manner possible so that the allegations against their member may be dismissed without an appropriate investigation," the report states, adding it was a "typical tactic."

In many cases, evidence that could be harmful to the trooper's case would be excluded, while information damaging to the accuser would be found in detail.

The report concludes the Internal Affairs Unit didn't deliberately issue false reports or corrupt the investigation process, as the state police union alleged - but did, due to orders from superiors, fail to document important information and exhaust all leads. In some cases, investigators also were told to ignore physical and circumstantial evidence to focus on less serious allegations.

The report names several high-ranking officials who had some involvement in directing internal affairs investigations inappropriately, including the public safety commissioner, Boyle; the head of the state police, Col. Edward J. Lynch, who announced his retirement on Friday; Lynch's chief of staff, Lt. William Podgorski; Lt. Col. Vincent McSweeney; and Capt. Michael Guillot, who supervised the internal affairs unit before being removed when the investigation commenced.

"The net results of these actions were inadequate reports that led to inaccurate conclusions rather than deliberately falsified reports," the report states. "The result of these flawed investigations was that when an employee may have been deserving of discipline or even arrest, no action, or inappropriate action, was taken."

Confusion over who or what should be investigated also led to an 84 percent decline in the number of internal affairs investigations over the years, from 288 in 1991 to 46 in 2005, the report states.

"While we would like to believe that this decline is a direct result of a decreasing number of complaints and incidents of misconduct, every indicator we found points to an increasing disinclination to formally investigate the complaints received as the real reason for the decrease in these investigations," the report states.

According to Boyle, who requested the outside investigation following allegations from the union and whistleblower complaints, the unit "unfortunately lapsed into investigating complaints in an informal manner."

The vast majority of Connecticut's 1,200 state troopers do their jobs well, but "sometimes, people made judgment calls. Sometimes, people were derelict in their duties," he said.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell called on Boyle to set up an independent commission that will oversee change at the department.

"We now know that lax and less-than-professional procedures have tainted internal affairs investigations within the Connecticut State Police," she said. "Connecticut's reputation for having the finest state police in the nation must be protected and maintained."

The report makes more than 60 recommendations, most of which include more funding. Among them are better training, higher ranks for investigators, and better facilities and equipment.

Buzz Aldrin and others talk about space travel, Mars, and other subjects. There are geometric shapes in some of the Mars landscape. It could be debated there was once a mining operation or something else going on over most of the surface. Some comments of nationally known personalities weigh in.